-TheWire.in Diane Coffey and Dean Spears’ Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste is a path breaking addition to the literature on child malnutrition and development policy in India. The history of global health has been marked with a dramatic turnaround starting from around the mid to late 19th century. This period witnessed an unprecedented decline in death rate and a steady increase in the life expectancy...

-The Indian Express In zones of prosperity, agriculture faces crisis, jobs are few, social aspirations don’t match economic realities After Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmers from Rajasthan came out on the streets demanding loan waiver and implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report. Protesting against government policies and demanding their share in the country’s development, which they argue have been denied to them, the farmers have shown unity across caste and class lines....

-Scroll.in The price of petrol and diesel remains as high even though the cost of importing crude oil has halved from 2011. In 2011 when the cost of oil being imported by India was averaging above $100 per barrel, the retail price that citizens paid for petrol in Delhi averaged Rs 65 per litre. But today, when the cost of importing oil is substantially lower at an average of $50 per...

-The Indian Express On the latest justifications being given by the RBI, Franco asked “what was that economics he (Governor Patel) learnt to roll out a financial policy like Demonetisation troubling the entire population?” Chennai: Blaming the Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel for “misusing” the central bank to carry out demonetisation which “caused trouble to the common man”, D Thomas Franco, general secretary of All India Bank Officers Confederation has...

-Scroll.in Inability of local officials and infrastructure to cope with the complex technologies driving the scheme could be leaving lakhs of workers unpaid. This year’s Economic Survey lists several “improvements” in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act brought about since 2014-’15. Mostly, these “improvements” are technological initiatives – greater convergence with other programmes, “geo-tagging” of MNREGA assets. They have not made a difference on two of the stated purposes – timely...